Nesta

Nesta blinked in surprise when her twin was whisked away in a whirlwind of shadow. She had tried not to bristle at the way the fae brute had crowded in at her back. It was only for Isabella that she had restrained her comments.

It was ridiculous, the way he– Cassian– behaved around her. She was a married woman and that might not mean much to fae but it still had some weight in the human realm, on Isabella's thoughts.

Despite Isabella confessing her ability to fall in love with Cassian it was clear to Nesta that her twin never would unless she was free from Tomas. She wondered if that was why the timeline had suddenly moved up. If this was foolish, first love fueling her desire to leave.

Isabella wouldn't be foolish enough to put a male before Oliver but she was desperate to be loved enough that she would allow his influence to crowd her judgement. Her decisions.

Feyre was still staring at her, as if waiting for her to say something. Nesta didn't. She didn't bother to stay and watch Feyre with her apparent girlfriend either. That was something Nesta couldn't wrap her head around either. She couldn't picture how her little sister could love someone the same gender as her. Hells, Nesta didn't think it was possible to do so considering how unnatural the whole affair was.

Nesta strode from the room, listening out for the telltale sound of the High Lord winnowing the rest of his entourage away as she ascended the stairs.

"You cried." She froze, angling her head slightly to indicate she was listening.

Elain went on, "You cried for her, didn't you." The tone might have been accusatory if it was so underlined by disbelief. "I hadn't thought you were capable of tears."

"And I didn't think you had the capacity to be cruel." She countered, voice smooth as she peered down at her sister who stood by the fire. "Tell me, was it disgust for the male's scars or hatred for Isabella."

Elain dragged her gaze away from Nesta to stare into the fire.

"Or perhaps it was pure selfishness." Elain flinched at her words and Nesta's eyes narrowed. "Cruelty does not suit you."

"I wasn't aware I had been." Her voice was delicate and quiet. Elain turned all doe eyed and soft in her pale chiffon gown. "Nor was I aware that you cared so deeply for Isabella. I thought you would have been pleased to see her go, you never were very fond of Tomas."

Nesta took a step back down the marble staircase. She felt her head tilt as she analysed every breath of her little sister. Where was the sweet girl she adored? The one who let her practise braids on her silky locks or play dress up with her as little girls.

"Why the sudden interest?" She demands stepping down another step and Elain seems surprised by her willingness to treat her as an equal. "You didn't seem interested during Isabella and I's discussions."

Elain scoffs, "I was never invited to those discussions."

"It was a family matter," Nesta's eyes narrowed. "Why would you need an invitation to a family matter."

Her sister blanched slightly, staring at her in shock. "Isabella is married, Nesta, to Tomas Mandray if you had forgotten. It would be considered unseemly for us to have an opinion on her family." Elain's flustered now and Nesta wonders how she herself had ever believed such a lesson from their mother. "We became separate families once the marriage was consummate."

"So Isabella is no longer family and therefore we shouldn't help her?" Nesta snarls and steps down level with her sister.

"No– No." Elain waves a frustrated hand in the air, turning away to brace an elbow against the fireplace and cover her face with her hand. "That is not at all what I meant. She's my sister– I adore her."

Do you? Nesta wondered, suddenly doubting her little sister.

"But Fae Nesta." And she found herself unable to argue with Elain's fearful eyes. "How does this make us any better than the ludicrous Children of the Blessed." Elain steps forward, arms dropping down to wrap around her stomach. "Tomas is... cruel. I understand that now, but surely he would be better– safer – than sending her to Prythian of all places." She's pleading now and Nesta finds herself swallowing nervously. "Where she will be defenceless and alone with a child."

"She would have Feyre." Her voice is hoarse and Nesta hides her wince.

Elain angrily tugs her air out of her face, "What could Feyre do against any of them?" She waves her hand wildly, "Did you not see those winged males? The weapons they carry, the snarls they use. They are more predators than man." Nesta understands her sister's fear, she really does but this isn't the way.

"And that Morrigan." Elain begins to pace. "I don't trust her." Nesta doesn't either but this is absolutely not the time to start agreeing with Elain's fearful rants. "They way she is with Feyre? The way Feyre looks at her? It isn't right, she's using our sister somehow."

Nesta feels herself sigh. Now that her own thoughts have been reflected back to her they sound foolish and desperate outloud.

"Elain–"

"Don't Elain me." She snaps and Nesta sinks into the armchair that Isabella previously sat in. "This goes against everything we believe in Nesta! I understand that Feyre has to stay with her people now but she has forsaken every part of her human heritage." Not that Nesta could truly blame her for doing so, she might not understand every decision her youngest sister makes but she understood the desperation to leave this hell hole. "And will Isabella and Oliver do the same now?"

Nesta didn't bother mentioning that little Ollie wasn't fully human anyway. Elain didn't need another reason to dislike the child she never particularly warmed to.

"And what would you have us do instead?" Nesta changes tactics, folding one leg over the other as she rests her clasped hands on her knees. "Let this land waste away into war, run and hide in the mortal realm or perhaps you want to run to Lord Nolan's Graysen."

Elain flinches back, tears welling and Nesta can feel regret curling in her stomach.

Nesta's eyes flutter shut for a moment as she looks away, "Elain–"

"Is this a joke to you?" Elain hisses, tears welling in her eyes. "I am terrified. Do you understand that? Our sister wants to leave for a land known for its cruelty towards humans... for its enslavement of humans." She practically bites the words out. "Why can't we help Isabella here if she is so desperate to leave Tomas. If we cannot help the Mandrays or have Tomas see reason then why can we not support her. Let her live in our home because God knows we have enough rooms in this damn house."

"She can't stay here, Elain." Nesta whispers, feeling herself stiffen as she clamps down on the emotions she would have allowed Isabella to see. "It wouldn't be safe for her or Oliver and it would be no life for them to leave."

Elain paces for a moment, her steps fast and hard. "Then we could send them somewhere safe. Perhaps claim they went to stay with Feyre and Aunt Ripleigh."

They had already thought of that. She would be isolated and alone, Oliver would still be a half-breed surrounded by humans and they risk putting Isabella in more danger with the threat of the Queens looming over their heads. There was no guarantee that they would forget her involvement with the Night Court, nor the way she had seemingly captured the fae general's attention.

She would not have her sister be killed as some ridiculous threat to the Night Court.

"It is Isabella's choice." Nesta's voice is firm and Elain pauses her movements. "All we can do is support her."

She rises to her feet as Elain demurely nods. Nesta understood, she really did. Elain was scared for her sisters, for herself, and it certainly didn't help that she had that pathetic fiance of herself whispering nonsense in her ear.

The sisters part ways and instead of heading to the library like Nesta intend she found herself leaving the manor. Her breath clouded before her face in the cold as she tucked her thick cloak further around herself.

Her maid had seemed particularly concerned by her abrupt exit but Nesta paid her no mind. She needed time to think and a walk to clear her head always did her some good.

The thick blanket of snow had petered off during the day leaving sections of the hard mud path visible to the eye. Not that she needed a path to guide her through the frost covered pine trees of the forest surrounding the side of her home.

This path was as familiar to her as the one through her own gardens. The trees seemed to have blocked out most of the snow, leaving the sunlight to stream in through the gaps and fall upon the cold rich mud.

Once upon a time she would have turned her nose up at walking through such muddy stretches. At risking her new gown getting shredded on the brambles and thorns as she strode through the undergrowth.

Now she found herself missing it.

Not that she would ever wish to go back to that hovel her father deemed the price of her twin's life, she just didn't want to forget what she had lived through. Elain and father were content to forget their tumultuous time in the ramshackle cottage. Feyre had been consumed by memories and hardship until she was finally free enough to shake off her burdens. Isabella had been left behind.

She was still living in that ramshackle cottage,

Nesta almost scoffed at the thought. How Elain could titter on about Tomas when the truth was blatant for all to see. She could still remember seeing Old Grandfather Mandray walk through the Village with son as they dragged log after log onto a Pyre. Tomas had been a teenager then. No more than two years older than her twelve year old self.

He had been following his father and grandfather, carrying twigs to add to that cursed pyre. It was obvious he would follow in their footsteps. She had just never understood how encompassing that statement could be.

But the thought had kept her up late at night. Wondering whether she was destined to turn out like her mother and father. A cruel woman or a bitter coward. Some days she laughed at herself, gleeful in caring for Elain and Feyre as children and her bravery at protecting Isabella from unwanted suitors at balls.

Others she would watch herself snap and roar at Feyre, bitter in her rage as she would refuse to so much as chop wood out of spite. It had been like watching someone else move her body. A puppet to her grief. Nesta had tended to the home of course, she had cooked the food, cleaned the cottage and cleaned their clothes but when Feyre would come home exhausted and bruised it never felt like enough.

When Father had announced Isabella's engagement to Tomas she hadn't been strong enough to stop it.

A cottage.

The worthless hovel that stood before her was all her father deemed worth Isabella's life. That and a few meagre crate loads of firewood.

Nest was trembling as she pushed open the door, flinching when it fell in on itself and crumbled to the floor. Stepping over the threshold she felt herself holding her breath. As if breathing in the air would make it all real.

But it was real and when she exhaled and smelt the familiar mould and bunt char from the fireplace Nesta's tears bubbled to the surface. She had been crying a lot in solitude recently. It had been foolish to cry before Isabella but her twin was the other side of her coin, the reflection of her soul and she was never very good at hiding her emotions from her.

It was hard not to feel stupid. Not when Elain had so clearly seen her tears. It had been a moment of weakness and her little sister had certainly pounced on the opportunity.

Stupid. She had been so fucking stupid to cry.

Tears are a weakness. Her mother's voice echoed in her head and Nesta closed her eyes. You cannot have weaknesses, do you understand me girl?

She exhaled slowly, controlling her breathing just like her nursemaid had taught her.

Maybe that was part of the reason she was crying. Nesta had always thought her mother was right. And that if she wasn't right then she was teaching her daughter how to survive a male world. But seeing Isabella, seeing how she loved Oliver it was so abundantly clear that her mother didn't love them.

Sometimes Nesat thought she was incapable of love, like her mother, and then she felt herself distancing away from her family because she loved them too much. She hoped that's what her mother was doing. That somewhere deep down she had truly loved her daughters.

That was why Isabella had to leave. She had to leave with Oliver before this insane world corrupted their love.

When Nesta opened her eyes she was still in the cottage. Part of her had felt so far away that she expected to have physically moved but she was still here. Still slumped against the weathered table.

The wod frame was rotting away, the stones used for the walls scratched between the crumbling grout. The floor wasn't worth mentioning and she feared breaking a rottign floor board as she shuffled to the one bedroom in the house.

The wrought iron bed was still there and Nesta's breath caught in her throat.

It had been a wedding present from her father to her mother. She and her sisters had been born in that bed. Her mother had died in it as well. The metal was cold and wet when she grazed a hand over it and shiver shuddered down her spine.

Nesta could swear that her mother's screams still echoed down the hallways as she nearly died giving birth to Feyre. Twins had always run in the family and apparently there was a complication with Feyre as a result. A false baby hiding in the womb with her youngest sister, causing their mother to bleed out and develop an infection.

Mother had distanced herself from Feyre after that.

Nesta turned to the dresser. Feyre hadn't distanced herself from her sisters though. They had spent so many days with Feyre, every waking second not filled with lessons on etiquette, on dancing, or time filled with socialising and balls.

They had doted on her. Telling her about their day as Feyre desperately hoped to be like her older sisters when she grew up. Nesta still remembered the way she would try to copy her ballet twists and turns when she was a pudgy little six year old.

Her sister had always been an artist though, even from a young age she was a promising student. That joy for creation and colour had never faded, even during their years in the cabin.

Nesta delicately stroked the handles of the dresser, eyeing the peeling paint of the flames devouring her draw and the forest scene captured within. She had always wondered why Feyre had painted flames for her. Their mother had thought her akin to a frozen lake, beautiful, graceful but deadly for those that feel into her trap. Elain had once compared her love to frostbite, something so cold it burned. Perhaps Feyre had truly seen how deeply she has always felt her emotions, how her pain and anger had always burned like a wildfire within her.

The flowers on Elain's draw were nothing more than mockery of her fallible beauty. The rolling meadows of Feyre's scenery reflecting nothing more than the delicate lie her sister was forced to tell. They were each given their roles in life and Elain was to be the delicate beauty who would have a love story of marriage and jewels.

Feyre had always found solitude in the night, in the stars and galaxy that she so painstakingly painted onto her drawers but Nesta had always wondered about the paper lanterns that floated in the sky. Their gold colour is so bright and bold that it reminds her of Morrigan. Of the boldness of her personality and her apparent role as the shining beacon of truth in the darkness of lies.

Nesta remembered how horrified their mother had been when she found Feyre playing house with two female dolls, when she had proclaimed them to be wed. It was memory she had locked far far away in her mind but now it rose to the surface. Nesta had hoped Feyre would be able to settle with a male, to find some modicum of love or friendship with whoever she marries. For some time she had thought that would be Isaac, then Tamlin came along and she was willing to accept one fae in her family – her dearest Oliver – but the prospect of her sister marrying one had seemed... horrifying.

And now...

Nesta rubbed at her forehead feeling her headache brew.

Not even her Isabella was content to play by their mother's rules anymore, by their societies' rules. It was to her draw that she looked now. At the three mountains side by side curling around a frozen lake banked by forests. It had been an odd choice for Feyre. She had painted a wild fire consuming a forest, a rolling meadow, a starry sky filled with lanterns yet here she painted the perfect scene. Not a dramatised version of an element. The three mountains were snow capped, the whole forest dark and frosted. The sky was filled with rolling clouds and Nesta swore that she could see lightning crackling in its depth.

Isabella had never been one aspect. She could not be defined by one feature. Her twin had always been constantly adapting and changing. Matching Nesta's actions, mimicking their mother's demands, following her husband's orders. Nesta had always thought that was who Isabella was, someone who could change their mindset, their disposition on a whim to match the situation.

It had been a survival technique but it had been the one definable characteristic about her twin.

Nesta hoped that Isabella would have a chance to find out who she is for herself in this new life she intends to lead.

A/N: I am basing the Archeron's sisters and the village off a Victorian England era so Homophobia and racism would have been rife at the time. I want to make it clear that this view will change as the Archeron sisters learn more about the world.

This fanfiction is a safe place and any homophobia or racism will not be tolerated.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Isabella POV for some Nesta Angst – Nesta and Oliver are going to have a conversation about family in the upcoming chapters, what would you like to see included.